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So we had our realtor come out this past weekend to take a gander at the house and let us know what we need to work on before putting the house on the market. I was thinking she’d point out “projects” but she walked through the house and told me EVERYTHING that needs to be done – such as decluttering, staging, etc. talk about overwhelming! I spent the next several hours writing lists. I kept trying to find a method/type of list to help me not feel so overwhelmed…not sure I found one but writing everything down thirty different ways was its own type of therapy (because I’m a huge nerd who makes lists and excel spreadsheets for relaxation).

We’ve decided we need a storage unit sooner than later, we just want to make sure we get one big enough to hold our lives. Because one thing you don’t quite realize when you plan to put your house up for sale is that while it’s on the market they want you to live in your house…but look like you don’t. So even though I have my lists (which somehow keep growing) I’m looking around my house preparing for what can be packed away for a month or more and what’s really necessary for daily living. It’s like trying to pack for a month long vacation and hoping for the best case scenario so you can pack light. Yikes.

Anyway – at least that goal has gotten off to a start. Now I’ll be spending a lot of free time painting (and writing because I need to finish that book!), and packing up life!

I always find it on my pants. Sometimes my shirts, but usually my pants. It’s become an accessory several times a week. I don’t own that many pairs of jeans, mostly because I’m losing weight so I don’t want to stock up on pants that won’t fit me for long.

Sometimes I know the peanut butter is there because toddler man mouths my leg after eating some. Sometimes I find it later, I look down and there it is, about the height of the kitchen table because someone decided peanut butter makes excellent paint (and it kind of does).

It’s kind of gotten to the point where I’m not so careful when I eat anymore. The food on the kitchen floor doesn’t always come from the toddler in the room, why should it? I have to clean it up no matter who makes the mess and there’s always going to be something to clean up…so why try so hard?

Toddlers may be messy – but they sure are fun. So for now I’ll deal with the peanut butter and all the other little messes and I’ll try to be more put together and clean when I’m older.

I’ve been giving my goals some thought (some less than others) but here they are. I’m also going to tape them to my mirror so I remember what goals I set. Here we go:

2018 Resolutions

Query 5 agents by August

Finish the 1st draft with necessary edits

Have 3 BETA readers (at least)

Research agents

Write and polish query letter

Send

Reach goal weight by August 31st by cutting back sugar and working out more.

Make my marriage a priority by having at least 12 dates with my hubs and holding family counsels.

Go to the temple at least twice (DC will be closing in March until 2020 – just thought I’d explain the low number).

Service – do one service activity a month.

MOVE!

Read 25 books. At least two need to be on writing and three be church books.

Mommy/Son dates – Take time for just Nicky and me by going on at least 6 outings together.

As you can see – I’m making dating my family a big priority this year – someone’s desperate… I’m excited and nervous about my goals – mainly the writing one. I realized a few weeks ago that I hold back because I get anxiety about the whole submission process. I figure if I make it a goal then my pride and stubbornness will overpower the anxiety and I’ll finally take the next steps. We’ll see. An unwritten goal is to blog and journal more – so hopefully you’ll hear from me more (if that’s what you want).

As I posted yesterday – I thought I had a draft of my weekly new things. This is by a complete list, looks like I stopped adding after about three months or so but you get the idea.

So I’ve fallen behind reporting on my weekly “projects” which I have dubbed Pinterest projects because honestly 99% of them will be attempts to do things I saw on Pinterest.

So here’s what I’ve tried and how they turned out.

1) Homemade paint. Recipe found HERE. This….did not work for me. I may try it again some time but it came out too thick to actually be used as paint.

2) Family Home Evening on Prayer – I just kind of made this one up. I have pictures to go with all the answers to the questions.

3) Preschool Calendar Board – this one actually took two weeks because I had to order more ink and go back to the store to get more velcro and laminating paper. I got the idea from HERE.4) Glazed Donut Muffins – HERE

These were delicious! Enough said.

5) Pin the Tail on the Bunny (LINK – PS I love this website!) however – the project failed. Seemed simple enough but the Velcro was just too strong and the tails ripped off.

6) baptism FHE

7) Pound cake

I’ve made pound cake before but I wanted to try a new recipe. Recipe found here.

There may have been too much batter, or it was too fluffy, or the pan’s too small. So many options.

It’s that time of year again. Time for me to look over my goals and realize that if I don’t write them down and post them somewhere I forget all about them. My first goal for 2018 is to post my goals on the mirror!

This year has been pretty good. We added Izzy to our family and she’s not so bad (and by that I mean she is absolutely the cutest baby I’ve ever seen or birthed). Nicky started preschool in September and he seems to be doing well. His vocabulary has taken off. As of today his favorite things to say are, “oh my word”, “gosh”, “help you” and “scared”…not sure what’s scaring him but he says it a lot.

I got released from my calling with the Young Women in October but now I will be their basketball coach and I’m still teaching Relief Society twice a month (and developing an ulcer because teaching stresses me out).

In 2017 I learned how to let things go. I was getting too worked up on things (and people) being exactly how I thought they should be and that only led to constant disappointment and frustration. Once I let go of my expectations my life and relationships got much better. I still skip up from time to time (today after church for example) but failure isn’t the end, it’s just a learning opportunity for next time (aka tomorrow).

Ok on to the part where I let you know how I did with my goals.

Finish Personal Progress – I’m happy to announce that I finished this back in the spring.

Writing – I didn’t write everyday but when I did write I wrote more than 100 words. I took two months off after Izzy was born but in that two months I contemplated the backstory of my novel and where I wanted it to go. So I’m marking this as a success because I persevered and aside from my “maternity leave” I always had something to submit to my writing group.

Journal/Blog Writing – Nope. My blog is a pretty good indication of how this went. I probably wrote in my journal less than I blogged.

Have Family Home Evening – medium success. I’ve gotten better – and I’ve made little FHE packets which has been great because then everything is ready to go. I need to make some more but for 2018 I’m set for about two months.

Do something new each week. Success. Mostly I did Pinterest projects. I made a bunch of new food, tried new crafts, made new activities for Nicky and made him a new quiet book to for his age. I have a post around here somewhere where I was keeping track. I’ll look it over and may post what I had.

Get the house ready to sell! Meh. I painted the bathroom and the living room ceiling. I don’t think it will hold us up too much but we will see when we have our realtor come out to look at the house.

Stayed tuned for my 2018 goals after the new year! Hope everyone had a great Christmas and be safe tonight!

We finally took some family pictures. Matt doesn’t see what the big deal is with taking pictures while the babies are babies and I said, “as the sixth child who didn’t show up in family pictures until I was seven, I’m determined that none of my children go through the same thing.” So that’s why we do this and will continue to do it annually.

I kind of knew when I started the 25 days of service that not every day would be blog worthy. What I’m trying to learn this year is to serve despite “ambition”. Serve even when it’s something small and also – recognize that small things are service.

On Mormon.org, one of the suggestions one day was to say nice things behind someone’s back…I would have never thought of that being an act of service. But it is nice that on the really busy days, I can still squeeze in a small act of service. I can donate, I can let someone know I’m thinking of them, I can smile at every person I pass in park (which I did, last Friday). I’m trying to break out of the mindset that service takes a lot of time or money. Although I’m still doing things that take time and money in addition, just not every day.

We’ve made and delivered Christmas cookies to a neighbor, we donated gift cards to our bishopric to give to members of our ward who may need them, bought Christmas stocking stuffers for the missionaries serving in our ward, made a donation to a children’s hospital, etc.

I’ve been trying to mix my service between community, ward, friends and family. I think the hardest to recognize and to do is with my immediate family, the ones I share a house with, the ones I’m always doing things for anyway so it feels like cheating if I use service to them one day.

Overall – it’s been a positive experience so far and I’ve been working on my list of service ideas to do throughout the year. I think I mentioned in the last post, I’m hoping to do one service project a month with Nicky. But hopefully I’ll also be able to teach him how to serve everyday by helping out the people closest to him.